O MUSSEKADO, O IKONOKLASTA E A MAKA DA REPRESENTAÇÃO DO SUBALTERNO

Abstract

This essay will discuss the problematics surrounding the representation of the subaltern in the Angolan revu (revolutionary) rap. It will occupy itself with the rap produced by two MCs that come from very different backgrounds: MCK and Ikonoklasta. MCK is a product of the musseque, presenting himself as the “mussecado de raiz” (the one from the musseque) and rooting his discourse in this peripheral social space. He is the Angolan subaltern that manages to represent himself, and thus transposes Spivak’s argument by which the subaltern is unable to speak and is invisible without mediation. As he tries to represent Angola as a whole, MCK enters into the problematics of representation. Ikonoklasta is a MC that emerges from the Angolan power elite. He places himself at the margin when he decides to criticize the power structures and to be the spokesman for those who are silenced by the hegemony. This essay intends to equate the role of these MCs, as organic intellectuals (cf. Gramsci), who represent, in their poetry, the subalterns – those who have been silenced in the post-independence Angolan poetry. Taking into account what Linda Alcoff understands as “accountability and responsibility”, and also the silence in which the Angolan subaltern has been relegated to, this essay raises the question: should or shouldn’t these MCs speak for the Angolan subaltern?